Archivos y cartografías: 1/2/12

19/2/12

Matthew Cusick

p7 (that is that)

Defaced book page

p8 (still hard)

Defaced book page

Shauna, 2011

Inlaid maps, acrylic, on panel

Kara's Wave, 2009

Inlaid maps, acrylic, on panel

Course of Empire (Mixmaster 1), 2003

Inlaid maps, acrylic, on panel

Great works from Matthew Cusick.
From Antonio R. Montesinos

17/2/12

The saying goes that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. It occurs in places you least expect.
Revealing its art in the human body, but also cruelly absent in the presence of deformations and scars.
Ashkan Honarvar (1980) depicts an undeniable, unavoidable beauty by accepting the darker sides of human ‘nature’.

The body, torn by acts of war, exploited by the sex industry or used as a tool for seeking identity, is
the focal point of his work.This constitutes a search for a universal representation of the evil latent in every human,
providing an opportunity for reflection. His aesthetic dissection has an intriguing macabre nature,
which opens the images to interpretation.

Honarvar’s almost empiric exploration of the human condition knows no bounds. Its goal; the indefinable core.

Titus Verheijen

More here.

Manifiesto afectivista; Brian Holmes.

Como los sistemas de control se llevan a cabo por disciplinas con accesos excesivamente regulados a otras disciplinas, el origen de cualquier lucha en los campos de conocimiento tiene que ser extradisciplinaria. Comienza fuera de la jerarquía de las disciplinas y se mueve a través de ellas transversalmente, adquiriendo estilo, contenido, aptitud y fuerza discursiva en el camino. La crítica extradisciplinaria es el proceso por el que las ideas afectivas -i.e. las artes conceptuales--se vuelven esenciales para el cambio social. Pero es vital mantener el vínculo, presente en las afueras del conceptualismo, entre la idea infinitamente comunicable y la performatividad incorporada y singular.

(...)

Parecería que la intimidad, en nuestro tiempo, está cabizbaja, limitada con datos y vigilancia y seducción, aplastada con la influencia determinante de todas las demás escalas. Pero la intimidad es aún una fuerza impredecible, un espacio de gestación y por tanto una fuente del gesto, la noria en la que abreva el afecto. Sólo nosotros podemos atravesar todas las escalas, haciéndonos otros por el camino. De la cama del amante al abrazo salvaje de la muchedumbre al tacto ajeno de las redes, podría ser que la intimidad y sus expresiones artísticas sean lo que sorprenderán al siglo XXI.

Completo aquí.

16/2/12

Manifesto for an Active Archive

This Manifesto is a work in progress. The text introduces the ideas and motivations behind the Active Archive project lead by Constant in collaboration with Arteleku, and was initiated in 2006. This project aims at creating a free software platform to connect practices of library, media library, publications on paper (as magazines, books, catalogues), productions of audio-visual objects, events, workshops, discursive productions, etc. Practices which can take place on line or in various geographical places, and which can be at various stages of visibility for reasons of rights of access or for reasons of research and privacy conditions. The development will take place during 2008-2009 and regular workshops will be organised to stimulate dialog between future users, developers and cultural workers and researchers.

Decentralizing the archive

When we want to share with other cultural associations and groups/institutions, the challenge is as follows: how do "We" share information "Together", how do we channel information through each others' network, under which conditions? How do we produce digital content together? To develop common infrastructures, we will need to discuss what kind of licensing we prefer, and work on norms and a common agreement on formats. We also need to find a shared understanding of classifications or maybe first question existing ones.
Digital cultural archives today fall into two categories: fragmented archives and over-centralized archives. Fragmented archives look like isolated islands. Every institution sits on top of its treasure and tries to regulate and control the way it is used with at most offering a timid RSS feed. Centralized archives gather collections and resources from different origins but disconnect the material from its original context. Accessibility and searchability come at the cost of legitimisation.
An active archive is a decentralized archive which is not only open for reading but also for re-appropriation, comment, divergences, transformations. This manifesto is a plea for such a decentralized archive: an archive constituted from many sites and voices that keep their own contexts without fear of sharing, mirroring, connecting and using common protocols.

A project lead by Constantvzw.
Read it complete here.